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February 10, 2018February 10, 2018

Is a Three-Wheeled Electric Vehicle Even Possible? Sondors Thinks So

When you think about it, there aren’t that many car companies. At one point there were more, but then some of the larger companies started buying smaller ones. Which is why, when a new car company comes around its kind of insane. I mean, look at a company like Tesla. How hard was it for them to get people to buy into their products? Tesla was a bit different too because they were also bringing us a different kind of car. Not just in looks or design, but in how the car fundamentally operates. The idea of change can be scary for a lot of people, and here we are asking them to buy into an electric vehicle.

But that’s the time that we’re living in. We are moving from an internal combustion engine to electric cars. Which means, we’re going to see more startups emerging on the scene. But this isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, it’s great. But a new company, Sondors, is not only looking at building an electric vehicle, they’re taking it two steps farther. They’re taking a three-wheeled autocycle and making it a car. And they’re also wanting to bring you this vehicle for $10,000. Yes – that’s right – $10,000. Is that even possible? Well, check out this video to see for yourself.

Can you even make a car for that kind of cash? Maybe once you get into big-time production, but the prototype of this was around $1 million. As you can see from the video, this vehicle isn’t street legal or ready for actual roads. They don’t have working seat belts and couldn’t reach fast speeds. But, it seems like a decent car for short-term commuting. That is, once the company has added all the features necessary. Steering and braking work as advertised, even if the car is a bit slow off the line. Interestingly, the car is fairly stable. Which you might not be convinced given that it only has three wheels. These kinds of cars typically get a bad rap since we’ve seen them roll during shows like Top Gear. But that’s not always the case, as can be seen with this vehicle.

When the car does go into production — which the company expects to happen in April 2019 — the base model will have a range of 75 miles. Add an additional $3,000 for a range of 150 or $6,000 for a 200-mile reach. The zero-to-60 time will range from eight seconds to about five, which is pretty quick for a car that costs less than most used vehicles. Those speeds are thanks to a rear-mounted motor that will push out 170 horsepower and a whopping 323 pounds of torque to the front wheels.

What Sondors did with this prototype was make an exquisite design that we haven’t seen before. If the company is able to get its car into production next year, expect a lot of people to buy the vehicle based purely on its looks. Photos of the car don’t quite do it justice. Sondors wants to start slow with their cars – building 1,000 in the first year. They do have experience with producing electric bicycles, but cars are kind of different. Not only that, but they’re only asking $10,000 for the vehicle total. Which is way cheaper than even a used car, so how are they going to be able to pull it off? Unsure at this point, but we will certainly find out between now and 2019.